Mobile police chief addresses viral videos showing controversial arrests

By Ariel Mallory

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    MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — We’re now hearing from the man in charge of Mobile police officers, after two videos went viral showing them in physical altercations.

Both videos have gotten a lot of play, and reaction on social media.

The first involving an MPD officer wrestling with a handcuffed suspect, punching him several times in the head.

The most recent incident, shows an off-duty officer, body-slamming a teenage girl to the sidewalk.

Chief Prine says he was very “troubled” seeing both of these incidents.

The chief has been out of town these last few days, which explains why he’s speaking on it several days later.

Even though he was gone, Chief Prine was shown the video of the girl being slammed on the ground and says he opened an immediate investigation to determine if excessive force was used.

He says while people in the community are upset, he’s asking them to be patient.

“I felt what every other citizen in Mobile felt watching that video,” Chief Prine said. “But videos have to be put into context.”

The first incident happened last week.

Investigators say an MPD officer pulled Beezer Dubose Jr. over, ending with the two on the ground.

In the video the officer was seen punching Dubose in the face multiple times.

According to court documents, the officer involved claimed the suspect grabbed his private parts and squeezed.

Two days ago, an off-duty officer was seen body slamming a 16-year-old girl outside Accel Academy.

Officials say the girl assaulted a teacher.

Chief Prine says it appears excessive force was used but is waiting for the investigation to play out.

“I want to make it very clear the word appearance doesn’t mean there’s excessive force. It just means that what I seen it rose to the level that the case needed serious scrutiny,” Chief Prine explained.

The officer has been placed on administrative duty while a criminal and administrative investigation are pending.

Chief Prine wants to make it clear that the open investigation doesn’t prove the officer has done anything wrong.

“I want to be very clear that it does not mean because I ask for a criminal investigation to be done with this use of force that I in any way think that the officer used excessive force,” Chief Prine said. “There is a fact-finding process that has to take place and we have to remove emotions.”

Chief Prine says his officers go through use of force training every year and are in a constant state of training.

“Field officers, every year, we always do some type of use of force training and a lot of times that’s either coming from a commander or the legal advisor. The police department has its own full time legal advisor and that legal advisor also does some of the training. We’re always in a perpetual state of training and what I mean by that is when officers show up for roll call training invariably several times a month that supervisor is going to go over something that’s applicable to that job assignment. We understand that policing is not popular but we also understand that we’re going to police, we’re mandated to police, and it’s really our duty. But it’s also our duty to treat everybody with dignity and respect.”

Paul Prine, Chief of Police Chief Prine feels it’s hard for people who don’t wear the uniform to understand.

“People a lot times will see these videos that’s never dawned a uniform. And until you’ve dawned that uniform and you try to keep the peace and you try to de-escalate when people don’t want to de-escalate for those that’s never worn the uniform it’s hard for them to understand,” he said. “These officers are tasked with making difficult decisions and then being scrutinized from the public when those decisions are wrong. Yeah, I’ll just leave that there…”

Chief Prine also says they have special units designed to deal with juveniles, but don’t always have the opportunity to deploy them.

“We have a special unit that deals directly with criminal investigation and so if the juveniles involved in a crime, because of the sensitivity and the age of the juvenile, we do have a criminal investigative unit that does nothing but juvenile criminal investigations. We also have a family intervention team. When these officers identify individuals especially during school hours or in the community that are having problems, we try our best to get the family intervention team involved in it. We have several, certainly counselors, that go out and get involved. I think it’s also important that’s not always available when situations are timely. But none the less those are really the two factions that we have when it deals with juveniles.”

Paul Prine, Chief of Police The officer in the Accel Academy arrest has been with the department the last 26 years.

Chief Prine says he will not be releasing his name and that the officer wasn’t wearing a body camera.

As for the teen girl, charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest are pending.

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